Davao Homeschooling Resources: Offline Edition

Hello, hello! A handful of moms asked me where I get my homeschooling items here in Davao City and I shared with them the few stores that I buy from. I figured it would make a good post in case there's someone out there searching "where to buy homeschool items in Davao" :) Without much further ado, here's my top 3 favorite stores for our homeschooling needs:

1. BOOKSALE - This is a bookstore that sells preloved books so it's very, very affordable. I bought several almost-new Level 1 reading books from them for only P20 each! My usual budget when I go rummaging in BookSale is P100-150, and that's good for 5-10 books already. Frugal me is very happy! :) BookSale has branches in different Davao malls. It's in SM Ecoland (second floor), NCCC Matina (ground floor), SM Lanang to name a few. Here's some of our photos while visiting BookSale and the books we bought from it:

Recent rummage in BookSale, mid-2014 in SM Ecoland I think.

All the Christmas books here (left side) are from BookSale. That awesome Charlie Brown Christmas was only P75 and in mint condition! Love love!

Hardbound books of classic nursery songs with hand / body movements (Eensy Weensy Spider, Row Row Your Boat, This Little Piggy, etc) for only P25 each! I bought all I could find, 7books in all, hihi! That's the stack of books in lower left :)

From 2013! This is in NCCC Matina BookSale :) Aside from story books, there's also school activity books here and non-fiction (animals, plants, science) for your homeschool subjects.

New Year Week 2015

Good morning! How was your weekend everyone? Us, the Davao Homeschooling Family, had a restful one~ thanks to the cold weather which let us sleep in late til 8am. Yesss! ;-) To start off this week's blog posts, we'll go back to the very first week of the year first, New Year Week 2015. It had been a hectic one for us: traveling by sea and land, back to back to back parties, sick kid, and the usual shenanigans of under-5 kids. Phew! But now, looking back, I thank the Lord for it. It had strengthened my one word resolution for 2015, and it made our homeschooling family of four even closer :) Here are the week's highlights:

12/28: After one night in Samal (see our Christmas 2014 post and scroll to bottom), we stayed one night in Waterfront Insular Hotel~ one of the oldest luxury resort hotels in Davao :) Highlight of this day: our Vinta Bar date (lower right pics above) where I had my first alcoholic drink since getting pregnant in 2009 and breastfeeding since 2010. Awesome buzzzzz! ;-)

12/29: The fun continues in Waterfront! The kids truly loved the warm jacuzzi and enjoyed beachcombing too :) They also loved the breakfast buffet spread in Cafe Uno (not in pic). Maybe I should write a separate post on our Waterfront staycation, hmm..

first day high!

And just like that, we're back to homeschooling! :) It's as if the hectic Christmas holidays didn't happen and we're just rolling along our "normal" routine. Unfortunately, I'm reminded everyday that the holidays did happen because there's a huge stash of opened gifts by our bedroom door that I didn't clean up yet. Hohoho! #OrganizeMe2015 is clearly not happening in our home! But... we'll talk about organization in another post as today is all about our first day of homeschool for 2015!

If you're a bit confused with the post's title, it refers to the feeling of optimism or excitement ("high") during the first day of school. Which is what January 5, 2015 was in our home :) And instead of slowly easing into our homeschool routine, we jumped right into it after breakfast! I remember when I was a kid that I dreaded going back to school after the Christmas or summer breaks; but thankfully, our two girls are excited to do school activities again.

The Eldest (right) wanted to color her Jollibee placemat (from her cousin's birthday party) while The Youngest started her pre-writing exercises. Her book is wipe-clean and is a gift from her aunt. Thank you Aunty Rye! She loves it and finished half of the book in one sitting, w00t! Our toddler's focus is definitely improving :) After all the writing and coloring, we had our reading and Math lessons with this awesome flip book:

Christmas Week 2014

Hey, hey! How's everybody? Still hung over from all the holiday food? :) Because the Davao Homeschooling Family certainly is! We spent our Christmas Week with the in-laws in Davao del Norte and the food was endless! The seafood feasts (shrimps, crabs, fresh fish) just kept on coming. We all probably gained five pounds from all the eating we did there. Haha! Add to that the parties from my side of the family. The holidays are truly nasty to our waistlines, heehee! Anyway, here's a review of our family's Christmas Week this year:

12/21: Hubby and the girls with their #SelfieSunday pics :) I was busy packing our stuff for our Christmas mini-vacay at the in-laws and hubby was the one who watched the girls.

12/22: New pup at the in-laws!! :)

12/23: How we wrapped our gifts this year :)

Chicken Cacciatore ala Issa ;-)

Yes, I have to put "ala Issa" because this dish does not pan-fry the chicken pieces as in the original cacciatore dish. Remember I told you that I like to simplify cooking? Well, this Chicken Cacciatore recipe is one of my simplified dishes :) Instead of pan-frying the chicken, I just stewed it along with the vegetables and tomato sauce. No frying = less effort, less cooking time, less fat. Win! Below is the easy peasy recipe.

YOU NEED: olive oil, minced garlic, chopped onions, salt & pepper to taste, milk, tomato sauce, olives and cut chicken pieces. Your choice of carbohydrate; we chose spinach fettucine. And no, I can't give you how much you need for each ingredient. I just toss everything and hope to God it works. Haha! My mom says it's talent ;-)

WHAT TO DO:

1. Saute garlic and onion in oil until slightly brown.

2. Add the chicken pieces and let simmer in olive oil and its unhealthy (but yummy) skin fat.